Wednesday 3 October 2012 13.12 EDT
First published on Wednesday 3 October 2012 13.12 EDT

For more than an hour they had stood packed shoulder to shoulder for 500 metres along Deansgate, their hands clasped in front of them, heads bowed, before the first ripples of applause could be heard in the distance as the funeral cortege drew near.

Thousands of police officers in their smart black dress uniforms and with their medals pinned to their chest lined one of Manchester's busiest streets in a striking show of respect for PC Nicola Hughes, one of two officers killed in the city on 19 September.

The Police Federation had called on "the decent people of Manchester" to turn out to pay tribute to the 23-year-old constable on the day of her funeral service, and many had done so, wrapping up tightly in sensible anoraks against the wind, as the city centre hushed to a lunchtime standstill.

But it was the long, silent lines of police officers, many of whom had travelled from forces across the country, that offered the most moving tribute to the young officer. Hughes and her colleague PC Fiona Bone, 32, died after they responded to an apparently routine callout at a domestic address in the Mottram area of the city. Dale Cregan, 29, has been charged with their murders and two others.

Some mourners threw flowers as the hearse passed by preceded by six mounted police officers. Others applauded, as has become customary. The waiting officers merely bowed their heads. As the coffin was carried into Manchester Cathedral draped in a black flag and topped by a wreath of white roses and Hughes's police hat, the crowds fell silent.

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and senior officers from forces across Britain joined Greater Manchester's chief constable, Sir Peter Fahy, at the service, which was relayed on a large screen to a crowd of police officers and members of the public outside the cathedral.

Addressing Hughes's parents, Susan and Bryn, and 20-year-old brother, Sam, the Rev Charles Nevin, chaplain of Greater Manchester police, said any expression of sympathy was "constrained by the limits of our vocabulary".

"We cannot change what's been. We cannot turn back the clock. But we can show by our presence in the cathedral, and in the streets, homes and offices of our land, that we stand beside you," he said.

Friends and colleagues paid tribute to a bubbly, intelligent, well-loved young woman, "a kind and considerate person who still had something of the little girl about her". Sergeant Stephen Miskell said Hughes's immediate colleagues had described her as friendly, full of life, "as keen as mustard and as brave as they come". She had joined the force at a relatively young age, he said: "The recruitment department look to employ the very best people for the job. Nicola was the very best."

Paying tribute to her courage, Fahy said Hughes – whose father is a prison officer – had decided not to be a bystander but to "join the fray". He said: "Nicola signed up to the police service knowing that she would put herself in danger. She understood that the unarmed status of British policing is not some tactical option, or us holding on to an historic tradition now out of date … [but] central to our commitment to the minimum use of force, to our relationship with the public and to serving citizens rather than controlling them as some arm of the state."

It was abhorrent, Fahy said, that she had "met her death through an evil, dark act, but the best tribute we can make to her memory is that we continue to uphold the standards and the style of policing she demonstrated so well, and ensure that might does not conquer over justice.

"She will be greatly missed by everyone that knew her," he added. "We will never forget her great sacrifice."

Another colleague, PC Tracy Miskell, struggled to keep her voice steady as she read a poem at the conclusion of the service. "You can shed tears that she is gone," opened the poem, "or you can smile because she has lived."

As the coffin was carried from the cathedral to be taken for a private family burial, silence fell once more in Deansgate, and the officers stood to attention. Many of them will be back on Thursday morning when Bone's funeral will be held in the same place, and Manchester will turn out again to mourn.